Malawi choirs set to compete in a national competition

Music Crossroads and Copyright Society of Malawi (COSOMA) through Arts Sacco have organized a choir competition entitled ‘The 2017 Choir Competition’ with an aim of promoting and enhancing competent singing and the saving culture among Malawian choirs.

The legendary Kamenya Choir -(c) Abel Ikiloni

Msedera: There will be professional training

The competition will involve various Malawian choirs from across the country to compete in different categories.

Gladson Msedera, who is a music teacher at music crossroads, said the competition would bring together church and community choirs with an aim of sharpening their singing skills and building up the spirit of financial saving among choirs.

“The concept is to enhance the saving culture among choirs while at the same time nurturing their talents,” said Msedera.

He added that, the registered choirs would be given music training by choral experts before the day of competition in order to equip them with extra choral skills.

“Participants will undergo professional training to improve their skills before the competition starts,” he said.

He further said the competition would run in three categories namely the district, regional and national levels.

Msedera also said, the registration fee for all choirs who will compete is MK25, 000 and each choir would be automatically enrolled as a member of the Arts Sacco.

According to him, the target number of choirs to register for the competition is 240 and that over 100 choirs have already registered.

He continued to say that the grand prize for a winning choir at national level would be MK1, 000,000 and at district level it will be MK100,000 while at regional level it will be MK200,000.

The choir competition was first launched in 2016 by the Music Crossroads Malawi with an aim of providing a platform for choral music performance in Malawi and beyond and also to nurture and equip choristers with professional choral music skills.

Msedera said in an interview that, the first competition was focused on Lilongwe choirs only and was organised by the Music Crossroads Malawi only. To him the 2017 Choir competition which has been amalgamated with Copyright Society of Malawi through the Arts Sacco is one of their best.

“The joint initiative with COSOMA which is covering the whole Malawi is an upward movement and it’s the first of its kind since we launched the initiative in 2016,” said Msedera.

Detrich Freidrich who is the board member of Arts Sacco under COSOMA told Mana that, the combination of Music Crossroads and Copyright Society of Malawi would develop good living as well as artistic standards among Malawian choirs and musicians.

“We want to reach as many artists as possible including choirs so that we should help in changing their standards of living in the course of money saving through the Arts Sacco.

“With the Arts Sacco, we are saying ‘luso langa chuma changa’,” said Freidrich.

According to him, the Arts Sacco is a new born enterprise which was established to support local artists in Malawi develop the culture of saving so as to support their group activities such as purchasing of uniforms, musical equipment and events management as well as recording of their albums.